Nonprofits looking to start using social media as a marketing tool will find a wealth of sound advice online, but putting the pieces together into a solid strategy? That's the real challenge. No one simple strategy will work for every nonprofit group. (In fact, trying to give step-by-step ''one size fits all'' directions for using social media is ...

Media outlets need to enrich the syndicated wire service stories with local content if they are to attract readers and advertisers — but few have the budget, these days, for a cadre of local reporters to seek out and report on the ''local angle'' of a story. Nonprofits working on the ground in a community do have that local content to ...

It’s generally accepted that the nonprofit world is closely modelled on that of business.  A positive balance on the owner’s year-end bank statements, or a positive impact on whatever cause the nonprofit was formed to support? There’s a strong parallel. And nonprofits can benefit from the never-ending corporate research into what drives ...

Why would your organization want to pay for an email marketing service, instead of simply using Outlook and your regular email server to contact your members? There are a number of compelling reasons why even a small e-newsletter subscription list might best be handled by a dedicated email marketing service, starting — first and foremost — ...

When your spokesperson is interviewed on the TV evening news, that's air time worth far more than most nonprofits could hope to afford as an advertising purchase. And when your organization is quoted in the press, that lends an air of credibility that you just can't buy at any price. Advertising is telling your own story. Publicity is when ...

Social media and social networking are hot buzzwords in the world of online marketing, but what do they mean in practical terms? Is social media marketing just a passing fad, or could it be a worthwhile strategy for your organization? In a survey done by Collactive of close to 200 organizations, those with a successful social media strategy ...

Conventional wisdom says that it is the small nonprofit organizations who stand most to benefit from Web 2.0 opportunities, where so much can be accomplished for such a small investment of time and resources. Online video, for example, puts multimedia broadcasting into the hands of organizations that could never afford to buy television air ...

For an example of how simple web tools and social networking sites can be used to raise awareness of a nonprofit's cause, LOLseals is worth a close look. It's a new photo caption contest from the Humane Society of the United States, blending pop culture trends and web 2.0 tools in a low-cost campaign that practically begs to go viral. ...

Your nonprofit organization may buy advertising space to take a message to the general public, send out newsletters and email blasts to reach your membership, and run a website and blog to do both. But all of that, in the end, is simply “talking about yourself” – a strategy with very limited powers of persuasion. “You'll never say anything ...