Heather Mansfield is the owner of DIOSA Communications and principal blogger at Nonprofit Tech 2.0.

She also created and maintains the “Nonprofit Organizations” profiles on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Foursquare, which cumulatively have more than 500,000 Friends, Followers, and Fans.

A pioneer in utilizing social media for the nonprofit sector, Heather has fifteen years of experience utilizing the Internet for fundraising, community-building, and advocacy.

To date, she’s presented more than 100 social media and mobile technology trainings throughout the United States and over 500 webinars to audiences worldwide.

Email and Social marketing techniques can help you to consistently build relationships and communicate with your donors, volunteers, visitors, and prospects.

Today I would like to share with you the Use Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business Guide

Wisdom is learning from the experience others and applying that wisdom to our own endeavors so we don’t have to experience the failures others have already gone through.

ConstantContact has assembled the Use Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business Guide to give you some practical information on how some businesses are using email and social marketing to grow their businesses.

These ideas can be adapted to help you grow your ministry or organization, whether you’re a new start up or trying to grow to the next level.

Download Your - Use Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business Guide Now!

Find Out More About How ConstantContact Can Help You With Email, Survey, Events, and Social Media

If you’d like to leverage the power of social media for your ministry or organization right away, Please give Joe Goodale a call at 520-790-1222 to schedule a complimentary evaluation of your needs.

Find out how Harvest Media Ministry can help you build your organization through a variety of Internet-based services.

Email marketing techniques can help you to consistently communicate and build relationships with your donors, volunteers, visitors, and prospects.

Today I would like to share with you the 10 best practices for social media marketing success guide

In the evolving world of social media marketing it can be hard for a time-starved small ministries or organizations to keep pace and know what to do when it comes to connecting with donors and volunteers on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other specialty social networks.

While there’s no “one-size fits all” approach, ConstantContact has assembled the 10 best practices for social media marketing success guide that will help your ministry or organization, whether you’re just getting started or trying to take your efforts to the next level.

Download your 10 best practices for social media marketing success guide now!

Find Out More About How ConstantContact Can Help You With Email, Survey, Events, and Social Media

If you’d like to leverage the power of social media for your ministry or organization right away, Please give Joe Goodale a call at 520-790-1222 to schedule a complimentary evaluation of your needs.

Find out how Harvest Media Ministry can help you build your organization through a variety of Internet-based services.

The Nine Basic Rules for Volunteer Recognition

Consider these 9 rules for volunteer recognition when planning a recognition effort:

1. Recognize . . . or else — The need for recognition is very important to most people. If volunteers do not get recognition for productive participation, it is likely that they will feel unappreciated and may stop volunteering with your program.

2. Give it frequently — Recognition has a short shelf life. Its effects start to wear off after a few days, and after several weeks of not hearing anything positive, volunteers start to wonder if they are appreciated. Giving recognition once a year at a recognition banquet is not enough.

3. Give it via a variety of methods — One of the implications of the previous rule is that you need a variety of methods of showing appreciation to volunteers.

4. Give it honestly — Don’t give praise unless you mean it. If you praise substandard performance, the praise you give to others for good work will not be valued. If a volunteer is performing poorly, you might be able to give him honest recognition for his effort or for some personality trait.

5. Recognize the person, not just the work — This is a subtle but important distinction. If volunteers organize a fund-raising event, for example, and you praise the event without mentioning who organized it, the volunteers may feel some resentment. Make sure you connect the volunteer’s name to it.

6. Give it appropriately to the achievement — Small accomplishments should be praised with low-effort methods, large accomplishments should get something more. For example, if a volunteer tutor teaches a child to spell “cat” today we could say “Well done!” If she writes a grant that doubles our funding, a banner lauding her accomplishment might be more appropriate.

7. Give it consistently — If two volunteers are responsible for similar achievements, they ought to get similar recognition. If one gets her picture in the lobby and another gets an approving nod, the latter may feel resentment. This does not mean that the recognition has to be exactly the same but that it should be the result of similar effort on your part.

8. Give it on a timely basis — Praise for work should come as soon as possible after the achievement. Don’t save up your recognition for the annual banquet. If a volunteer has to wait months before hearing any word of praise, she may develop resentment for lack of praise in the meantime.

9. Give it in an individualized fashion — Different people like different things. One might respond favorably to football tickets, while another might find them useless. Some like public recognition; others find it embarrassing. In order to provide effective recognition, you need to get to know your volunteers and what they will respond to positively.

Harvest Media Ministry is not affiliated with “Hands-0n Blog”, I’ve only provided the above information for those who may need educational help in setting up a recognition program or want some guidelines for recognizing your volunteers better.

Harvest Media’s Website Development Services division can help you to put together a plan to grow your organization that works. Call Joe Goodale today at 520-790-1222, talk to me about your plans for growing your ministry or organization. If you would like help building your ministry or organization, give us a call at 520-790-1222.

Today we’ll take a look at YouTube – A video-sharing site originally created by three former PayPal employees. A couple of years ago YouTube was brought up by Google, and now enjoys a top ten  position in the video sharing niche.

At present there are over 300 video sharing sites on the Internet. For a comprehensive list go to: http://www.reelseo.com/list-video-sharing-websites/ 

As one of the leaders in the video industry, YouTube is probably the best known of the major video distribution channels. For traffic building to your site, Youtube is on top, just because it’s owned by Google – the top search engine, percentage wise anyway. However it’s not a good reason to just use them exclusively, you should also use more than one video site for more exposure.

So what’s the number one rule for top views of your video? IT HAS TO BE WORTH WATCHING!

Your video has to be relevant, informative, valuable to those that will watch. Some say that you must have great editing, lighting, and audio, but that’s not necessarily the case. I’m sure most of you have seen popular videos posted that had none of these qualities but went viral. I think the keys that are most important are those I stated before… Relevance, Informative, Valuable.

YouTube rankings generally have four key areas you must get right to score higher positions and visibility — Views, Metatags, Ratings and Comments. Each on these must play an important part in your overall stratagy for ranking your video(s) at the top of the search engines and thereby providing an avenue back to your site.

Here are some points you’ll need to concentrate on:

• Use your URL for your site throughout the video if possible, and if not, make sure it’s on the last frames of the video so people know where to go after viewing
• Use your URL at the beginning of the video description as well as at the end.
• Optimize your tags and keywords, use specific tags and keywords that are relevant to your video
• Be active, post videos often, post different versions under different keywords and tags, be creative
• Share your videos through all of your social media channels
• Make comments on similar and/or  related videos and encourage comments on your videos
• Start your own YouTube Channel and customize it to your site’s style
• Upload your videos to as many video sharing sites as possible
• Embed your videos in your site content and blog posts

If you would like help capturing and presenting your story on video or help promoting your video on-line or with DVD’s, Harvest Media Ministry is available to assist you in building your Christian ministry or non-profit organization. Please visit our websites at:

• Harvest Media Ministry at http://HarvestMediaMinistry.com
• Harvest Media Website Development Services at http://HarvestMediaHosting.com

You may also call us at 520-790-1222 for more information.

Would you like to get better results than last year’s campaign? Do you want to learn how to implement your campaigns but don’t know how to get started?

SAGE has put together two complimentary videos to help you understand and implement Year End Fundraising Campaigns.  The two videos:

• Year End Fundraising 101 – The Basics
  
• Year End Fundraising 201 – Advanced Strategies and Ideas

are available for free. Use the following link to access the recorded webinar videos:

Want to learn more about Year-End Fundraising? Download our recorded Year-End Fundraising webcasts!

They also have a Year-End Fundraising Campaign Planning Guide available for download also.

The guide is packed with practical ideas and proven campaign strategies and tactics. It includes includes everything you need to make your year end campaign a success. You get templates, sample plans and actual direct mail and email copy that you can tweak and use to create your own high-impact appeals.

Let SAGE help you bring in more donations than ever download your Year-End Fundraising Campaign Planning Guide eBook now.

Harvest Media Ministry is not affiliated with SAGE, I’ve only provided the above information for those who may need educational help in setting up fundraising campaigns or want to understand the process better.

Harvest Media’s Website Development Services division can help you to put together a plan to grow your organization that works. Call Joe Goodale today at 520-790-1222, talk to me about your plans for growing your ministry or organization. If you would like help implementing some of the email copy provided in the guide featured above, give us a call at 520-790-1222.

Today we’ll take a look at what Neilson Online is calling “The world’s largest audience of affluent, influential professionals”. Not only is LinkedIn’s membership highly educated, but it’s also wealthy and successful with household incomes averaging around $108k and over 20% of their membership is senior level managers and executives.

With well over 80 million members in 200 plus countries, LinkedIn members are influential, ambitious, and affluent. The great thing about LinkedIn is your ability to connect with these people in ways you may never have thought possible. By establishing your own community or leveraging communities already established, you can start conversations with experienced professionals in large and small companies in every type of business and industry imaginable, as well as,  CEOs from Fortune 500 companies or work-at-home solopreneurs.

Over 60% of these members are either decision makers in their companies or have direct influence over key decisions related to their product or services.

So what does this mean for your non-profit organization or ministry? Connections…Networking… and Relationship Building with people who not only can help financially, but better yet, may provide experience and insight into:

• How to handle personnel and volunteer issues,
• Banking and Finance,
• Promotional and Organizational Building
• and other “Ideas”

This, “experience and insight” can provide you with methods and skills that can not only help you grow your ministry but allow you to also be good stewards of God’s resources and the gifts donated to your organization.

In the coming months I’ll be going over each of these social media channels in more depth to show you haw to get the most out of them and to introduce you to how they work together to help grow your ministry an organizations.

Next Wednesday, we’ll take a look at another social media platform that is quite popular  for gaining rankings and traffic – YouTube.

If you don’t have the time to wait for this series to complete and need to leverage the power of social media for your ministry or organization right away, Please give Joe Goodale a call at 520-790-1222 to schedule a complimentary evaluation of your needs.

Find out how Harvest Media Ministry can help you build your organization through a variety of Internet-based services.

So how do you learn the skills of fundraising? Do you go to school? Attend seminars? On-The-Job Training?

The bible tells us that the wise learn from those who’ve already done it. From those who have the experience “in the field” so to speak. If we can learn from the best, we can avoid the costly mistakes that might ruin our mission goals and objectives.

Today I’d like to introduce you to “Donor Powerblog”. This blog is authored by Greg Fox, senior vice president of strategy at Merkle, a privately-held customer relationship marketing agency in the U.S.

The article I’d like for you to read is: Best Blogs for Fundraisers – who want to improve, grow, and innovate.

The blogs listed in the article can help you to uncover some of the best strategies and tips to help you actively engage with and develop your relationships with your volunteers, donors, and prospects.

Today, more than ever, donors are insisting that you treat them as part of your team, not passive ATMs. Volunteers also want to feel like they’re part of the team, that they’re making a difference, that what they’re doing for you is valuable and appreciated.

Read the full article at: http://www.donorpowerblog.com/donor_power_blog/2009/02/best-blogs-for-fundraisers.html

I hope that this article will help grow your organization and develop long-lasting relationships.

Harvest Media’s Website Development Services division can help you to put together a plan to grow your organization that works. Call Joe Goodale today at 520-790-1222, talk to me about your plans for growing your ministry or organization.

Twitter

Twitter is another social media network that is similar to Facebook, but it’s different in some ways. Twitter is the most responsive, interactive and influential social network on the web.

With Twitter, you can send out what is called “Tweets” or “micro-blogs” to your followers – similar to your Fans on Facebook.

These micro-blogs are extremely short with only 140 characters allowed. However, this is still enough to stay in front of your potential donors and volunteers.

It’s somewhat like a big chat room except YOU choose who you will follow. People “follow” each other if they fit their target audience and deem their content to be worthy.

What is the Value of Twitter for Your Ministry or Organization?

Twitter is an ideal tool for:

• Reaching a target audience
• Building positive connections
• Sharing relevant content
• Gathering ministry insights
• Establishing new volunteer and donor prospect leads
• Increasing traffic and donations

Twitter is an excellent way to let others know when you’ve just added valueable content to your blog, facebook page,  or website. If you’re using email marketing most of the email client companies let you tweet a quick message whenever you send out email newsletters, devotionals, invitations, etc., it’s a great way to let others share your information for you to their friends.

Social media doesn’t stop at Facebook and Twitter… there are many other social networks that businesses can use to tap into the powerful world of online marketing.

Next Wednesday, we’ll take a look at another social media platform that is quite popular  in other circles – LinkedIn.

If you don’t have the time to wait for this series to complete and need to leverage the power of social media for your ministry or organization right away, Please give Joe Goodale a call at 520-790-1222 to schedule a complimentary evaluation of your needs.

Find out how Harvest Media Ministry can help you build your organization through a variety of Internet based services.