ASAE’s MMCCon content takeaways

Last week I attended the 2014 MMCC Conference. It was 48 hours of intense learning, collaborating and general brainstorming. So much so that I tweeted this as I left the conference:
Screen Shot 2014-07-11 at 1.49.25 PMMany of the content takeaways are applicable even if you aren’t in the non-profit world.

  • It’s important to know what content your organization has and where it is located. Make sure to do (and then update regularly!) a content audit. This is the first step n creating a content strategy which will give you a good overall picture of your organization’s landscape. With a content audit you will know what pieces are located where.
  • Create a WHY for each channel you use to share content (print, podcasts, Facebook, twitter, etc). Why are you using these channels? Who is the audience consuming information in these areas? Who is visiting your website, what pages are they looking at and when? What are people searching for? Are they finding it? Don’t just look at entry pages in Google analytics, look at exit pages.
  • As you create the WHY for each channel think about your organization’s mission, vision and business objectives. Those three things alone need to be what drives the content. What are the goals? Membership? Sales? recruitment? Brand recognition?  Make sure each channel (and ultimately each content item) supports the business mission, vision and general objectives. If it doesn’t, is there a way to realign the content to fit? Why is it necessary if it doesn’t support those three things? While thinking about the WHY think about what defines success. What makes individuals pieces of content successful? What makes the overall content successful? The website, the Facebook page, etc. All content items should have a definition of success specifically for that piece.  All channels should have a definition of success specifically for that channel. Add a column to your editorial calendar labeled ‘outcome’. Know why you’re doing what you do.
    • 3 parts to review:
      1. Core target audience.  Who is the audience that you should be reaching with your content marketing?
      2. What will be delivered?
      3. What is the outcome for the audience?  Drive sales and revenue? Save costs (email versus paper) or sunshine (creating happier customers, keeping customers longer, get them more involved, etc.)
  • Each member (or audience) category should have its own content marketing strategy! Give people what they want, what they need, when and where they want and need it. Don’t make people search for content!
  • A content strategy must have a designated gatekeeper. A person who can look at a suggestion, content item or request and determine if it does meet the business mission, vision and general objectives. Or know how to create the piece to meet those requirements. Someone must have the authority to send the request back for more brainstorming.
  • Find a way (good source: slide share!) to share ALL presentations to the right audience. For an association, this might be in the member community site for those who miss out on a webinar, a conference or a presentation. Make the presentations available on demand to watch or re-watch.

Be sure to check back in the next few days for more takeaways from the conference as I have time to decipher my handwriting and review the tweets from the conference.

Review: Real-time Tracking with Keyhole

Keyhole.co is a real-time hashtag tracker for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It’s a visual dashboard that tracks keywords, hashtags and URLs. Using Keyhole.co you can measure and amplify conversations around your brand and campaigns.

For a reasonable price compared to other tracking services, you can also identify prospective clients and influencers who are talking about (or looking for) your services, products or organization.

Keyhole.co goes deeper than standard impressions and reach by giving you more insight into demographics and where your potential customers, clients or members are sharing the conversation.

On the dashboard (in this case for #TeamUSA), you can see the conversation, the numbers around tweets, users, reach and impressions. You can see who had the most top posts by retweets, Klout score or most recent tweets for the topic.

 

The Top Sites section allows you to see what domains were mentioned using that hashtag, and what tweets sent traffic there.

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Share of posts shows the breakdown of original posts, RTs and Replies. Most Influential give you details about who had the most retweets or who has the biggest Klout score, which tells you who talks about the brand or keyword the most. Recent users will show you who tweeted with the topic or hashtag in chronological order.

To read the rest, you’ll have to go check out PRBreakfastClub, where I wrote this as a guest piece.

p.s. there is still time to enter the contest to win a free 30-day trial for one PRBC reader. Just Tweet why you deserve to win tagging @keyholeco with the hashtag #PRBCKeyhole Winner will be announced on March 18, 2014.

Marking Facebook Milestones (Guest Post on PRBreakfastClub)


Do you know the history of your company? Aside from the date it was founded, do you know when the important milestones occurred? If you don’t, use the new Facebook for Timeline feature to find out!

You company has a rich history and your clients (fans in Facebook lingo) most likely don’t know about all those great things you did in the past. This is an opportunity to politely brag about your past accomplishments and reiterate to your customers that you are around for the long haul.

For the time being, Facebook won’t let you date photos prior to 1905. The work around is to create a milestone event. As long as you entered the correct founding date in your About section, you will have the option to select dates from that point on. For example, my organization, the Missouri State Teachers Association was founded in 1856. We’ve added Milestones from that date forward.

To read the rest, you’ll have to go check out PRBreakfastClub, where I wrote this as a guest piece.

Facebook Timeline as a virtual resume

If you haven’t upgraded to the Facebook Timeline, you should. Especially if you are looking at applying for jobs. Not only does Timeline give you the chance to clean up your past sins (read: party pics, drunken replies and posts out of context), but it also now gives you the chance to post life events.

First, let’s address the past sins. Be critical of your Facebook history. Spend a few hours looking over the past posts, particularly from very early Facebook. Do they even make sense? Does the picture imply something you didn’t mean for it to? Did you not even know your ex-best friend tagged you in that post? Now instead of deleting these items click the pen (or pencil depending on your interpretation), which takes you to edit or remove.

Which will then bring up an option for you to hide from Timeline, taking it of your wall.
Or if you would rather it just be gone forever, click delete post. Do this for all of your pictures, posts, comments and likes (particularly pages you liked and past groups you belonged to). Yes, it is time-consuming, but it is worth it.

Once you’d taken care of your past sins, it’s now time to brag about your past accomplishments. Think of this second part like your expanded work history. If it goes on your resume, add a life event for it. So add a life event for the prestigious scholarship you received, the outstanding award you won and anything else you would talk about in a job interview. If you have photos to go with these events, upload them.

To do this, click on life events, which will bring up an expanded drop down menu. You’ll see that Facebook has kindly put the categories together for you.
You can and should make your Facebook page into something you aren’t embarrassed about.